


Poppy's Boys

by Brennah_K



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-08
Updated: 2011-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-15 12:39:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/160893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennah_K/pseuds/Brennah_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort had no idea what fully opening his link to Harry in the department of mysteries would do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poppy's Boys

Harry gasped as the small silver object, which had -only moments before- been in the palm of his hand, shattered against a large rack of vials and test tubes that would have made any mad scientist in a muggle horror movie drool with lust.

 _'What were they doing in the Headmaster's office anyway?_ _He shouldn't have to test anything. He should be ready for things to happen. 'He's Dumbledore._ ' Harry thought angrily as his hand instinctively grasped another inexplicable object. ' _He's the leader of the order of the phoenix. He should have been ready. He should have fought Voldemort, not me. He could have done more. He always could have. He didn't have to let the minister chase him out. He could have taught me occlumency. He could have. I would have listened to him. I wouldn't have hated him_.'

He didn't really even realize that he was going to throw the object, until he heard the shatter of stained glass somewhere nearby, but as his hand was empty when he glanced down at it, he guessed that he probably had.

His found another something as his thoughts raged on, and this time his mind could only focus on the sight of a small inkwell filled with silver ink flying across the room and slamming into the mirrored cabinet that hid Dumbledore's pensieve. As he stared at the cabinet, the pain in his throat and mind felt like it was ready to explode. The trail of silver ink running down the cabinet reminded him of the sad glistening of unicorn blood that he saw in first year when he had first witnessed Voldemort possessing Quirrell.

That's what had happened to him. He'd become like Quirrell: a puppet, and worse!

Unlike Quirrell, he hadn't died. No, he was the boy-who-lived, left behind for Voldemort to use as a tool, whenever and however he wanted. With a little effort, maybe not even very much effort at all, Tom could take him over again; all it would take was the slightest slip, and Voldemort would have him again. If only Dumbledore hadn't been a soft-hearted coward he was and had killed Harry when Voldemort dared him. Harry was ready to die anyway.

Couldn't Dumbledore see that? Only his friends were left, but even they weren't what they once had been to him. Remus really had been only his teacher and a friend to Sirius: closer than the other teachers, but not someone whom Harry felt loved him. The Weasleys were Ron's family, and now that he had put Ginny in danger, gotten Fred and George expelled, and Ron hurt, much less been responsible for Arthur Weasley being bitten by Nagini... they couldn't possibly think of him like they once had. Hermione and Neville's families were certain to think the same. Harry didn't have anything or anyone left, or wouldn't once they found out that Harry had let Voldemort take over his mind, when he was supposed to have taken 'remedial classes' to prevent just that.

They wouldn't want to be his friends anymore. How could they when they would have to realize that Voldemort could pop into him, at any moment?

His eyes sharpened as he stared at the cabinet, remembering what Dumbledore had said to him in his fourth year when he had caught Harry in his pensieve: that it was useful when his mind became to muddled or jumbled or something like that, that he took out his most problematic thoughts and put them in it to review.

Harry didn't know how it worked. Not really. The times he had gone into it had been accidents- for the most part. But, he did remember watching Dumbledore concentrate on his wand to pull a string of light stringy stuff that he assumed were the old wizard's thoughts.

Problematic thoughts? Well, he had lots of those that he would like to leave behind, if only for an hour or so: Voldemort feeding off of the unicorn, Quirrel turning to ash, running from the Aragog, Ginny on the ground in the chamber, running from the Basilisk, The Dementors, running away from Remus, almost all of fourth year, Cedric, Umbridge and the blood quill, Nagini attacking Ron's father, Voldemort...

Before he could even finish the list of memories, Harry was already moving to the spot on the floor that he remembered hitting when he tried to catch the licorice snaps. The headmaster could have changed the trigger, but he suspected that the wizard hadn't and was relieved but not surprised when the cabinet opened. The Headmaster must have emptied it in case Umbridge found her way in because the liquid in it was clear and quiet. As he was trying to decide on which memory to concentrate on first, his eyes caught his reflection in a mirror above the pensieve. They were immediately drawn to the smear of blood on his forehead and strange swell of hope surged through him.

' _Could it be possible?'_

Staring at the lightening bolt scar, Harry had the strangest mental image of himself as a puppet cutting it's own strings - strings which had some how become a twisted strand attached to his forehead. Could he cut his strings from Voldemort? Was it even possible? What would happen if he tried and failed? Would he die? Go crazy?

 _'What would it matter if I do?_ ' Harry groped for a justification, unwilling to admit his earlier wish for death hadn't completely left him. ' _The press and most of the kids here already think I am. Maybe, they'd just leave me alone if I really was around the bend.'_

He didn't really believe it, but accepted the justification because it was easier than facing many of the other feelings waiting to overwhelm him. Pulling out his wand before he could change his mind, Harry pressed it into his scar instead of his temple and focused on the memory that was probably the closest thing that he had as a root for it.

Holding onto it, he pressed the tip painfully deep into the abraded and once again bleeding scar and mentally glued the thought to its tip. Then he slowly tried to pull and exulted when he saw a tiny bit of spider-webby stuff beginning to appear at the center of the scar.

It seemed thin, though so he grabbed other memories and began wadding them at it: every time the scar hurt, every time he had a strange dream, every time he woke up sweaty and scared unable to remember a dream, every ounce of pain, and particularly his memories of being pulled into Nagini and Voldemort's minds.

As he did it, the webbing thickened and clung to the wand tip more feircely, seeming as if it was fighting to pull the wand back to his face with the strength of its now thickened strand, but Harry - now excited by the possibility that it might work - was resolute and slowly increased the pressure on his hand pulling it away so slowly and so gently that there was no chance that it would snap. When it reached almost an arm's distance away and was thinning again and seeming like it was ready to snap and leave the scar behind (something he just knew he couldn't let happen), he started pushing other memories at it. Every time he looked at the scar. Every time he thought about it. The lies his aunt and uncle had told him about it. Every time he heard "the boy who lived". Every time he heard someone mention Voldemort or 'you know who'.

The task would have been horribly difficult if it weren't for the strong emotional connections that had been created relating to the names and memories. They were all tied together so firmly in his mind that he could almost just attach a single memory of a sort, and that one would seem to start pulling at another and another until they seemed to lift from him. Some unexpected consequences flowed from that, like all of the memories of insults and mistreatment that he had received from his aunt and uncle – closely tied to the lies that they had told him about his scar- soon wove their way into the bundle. All of his memories of Hogwarts tied into so many difficult moments that they were pulled into the memory strand without him being directly aware of it. By the time he had pulled it to its end by twirling it around the wand like spaghetti, he literally felt light headed, but more calm and centered than he could remember having ever felt.

Certain, now, that he was making the right move, he focused all of his concentration on the physical and mental location of the scar and put all of his will behind it with a fearsome push. As he did, he jerked his arm away – pulling the twisted strand from his face with a ripping sound. In the mirror, he could see the skin under the scar beginning to bleed as it was laid open. A long thin bloody bit of skin dangled from the end of the strand wrapped around the wand, and he stared at it in wonder as he felt his knees weaken. Giggling at the odd feeling, Harry almost reached out and caught the wand before it struck the surface of the pensieve, but he had already lost too much of his balance and couldn't stop his fall.

When in it hit, the pensieve began to hiss and bubble - acting like a vacuum through Harry's unsealed link to Voldemort, which Tom had been too weak and injured (after being in Harry's mind) to close completely.

Harry's only response was to stare up at the ceiling admiringly and giggle.

Pretty silver shadows were being cast by the bubbles rising to the surface as more and more of the Dark Lord's memories were being siphoned off, and Harry found the odd patterns of light they made on the ceiling amusing. The popping and hissing sounds seemed funny to him too, and he wanted to get up and look at it... but it seemed too high up, and he couldn't even get his arms to work right to roll over on his stomach so he could inch around.

There was no telling how long he'd been there when a high pitched, scary voice cried out words that Harry couldn't understand and began casting pretty fields of rainbow lights around the bowl that was hissing, popping, and spluttering with jets of silver liquid.

The colored lights were making a real show as the liquid behind it seemed to lap out of the bowl on occasion, and Harry felt sleepy as he watched the reflection of colors off of all of the shiny objects around the room. The odd voice was getting louder and a bit unpleasant, but Harry was already off to sleep before the voice could make him unhappy, so he didn't even notice when the voice's owner frantically dropped over him casting spells around them both, just in time to protect them as the pensieve's bowl exploded casting a shock wave of energy that shook the entire castle in a field of hot, bright, colorful magic that would have tickled Harry tremendously if he could have seen it – or frightened him terribly if he could have understood it. Harry's funny dream of odd colors was interrupted by the feeling of something patting his cheek, reaching up to catch it, Harry opened his eyes and was startled to find another set open just above his.

"Harry, My Boy. Whatever has happened?" a new voice asked in a funny tone.

"Ba – ba- ba- bah bah." Harry answered back talking to the other set of eyes as eagerly as he spoke with his mom whenever she leaned into his crib.

"Harry?" the voice asked in a slightly higher pitch of alarm that he only recognized because it was similar to his his mom's had sounded when she thought he had eaten a soap bit. Opening his mouth to show that he hadn't done any such thing... again, Harry continued talking to the voice. "Bah ah bah bah bah bahaba."

He wasn't hungry yet, and he felt dry, and he wasn't cold, so he finished his comment with a happy gurgle to let the the other know that he was well. After a second he let a bubble of spit rise to his lips and giggled as it popped, then grabbed the long soft stuff hanging off of the other's face and rubbed it on his cheek.

It was soft and smelled nice, so he curled his fingers around it more tightly and let himself drift off to sleep. The next time he woke up, a nanny was leaning over him waving her shiny stick, and he reached out to pat her hair – but missed grabbing her nose instead. It was odd though, he should have been able to grab it perfectly but it only barely fit in his palm. Deciding to give it up for another shot at her hair, Harry reached out and was suddenly distracted by a mobile of magical animals flashing into existence over his head. The hippogryff's wings flapped and its beak snapped as it flew in a slow circle. The dragon's scales and cool flame changed color as it too flew in a circle following the hippogryff and followed by a mermaid, a centaur, a unicorn, an elf, a kneazel, a chimera, and a fairy. As they flew in a circle, plinky music played in the background, but Harry wasn't much listening to it. Instead, he was curious about the voices he heard in the background.

"I found him in the same state as Potter." The potion master intoned over the insipid melody the mediwitch had charmed up to distract Potter. "It is only a theory, but I suspect that whatever the child did to create and anchor the legillimancy sink he created into your pensieve – prevented the Da... Voldemort from closing the link before the pensieve and containment spells overloaded. In any event, their minds, despite the differences in their ages, appear to have stopped at the same developmental level: that of a three month old child. No other memories remain."

"What prognosis would you give them?"

"What prognosis? What prognosis could they have? Their memories are quite literally scattered on the wind, Albus. Quite frankly, I see only one solution. "

"Well, that's more than I can see," the mediwitch sighed peevishly. That was a tone that Harry recognized sometimes as well. His mum sometimes sounded that way when his dad had been naughty.

"What answer have you come up with?"

"To deage them with a potion and attempt to normalize Voldemort's appearance and make up by using an adoption ritual... perhaps even several times."

"Used jointly... that might work." Poppy Pomfrey commented hesitently.

"I will endeavor to get permission to de-age them from the ministry as well as adoption papers." The headmaster agreed accepting that there probably wasn't another choice of treatment for the boys.

"Don't be ridiculous, Albus." Severus and Poppy protested at the same instance.

Only Madam Pomfrey went on to explain. "Fudge won't let anything of the sort happen. If anything, he'll try to throw Riddle in Azkaban, even though the man is - to all intents and purpose - a babe in the woods, and keep Harry as his poster boy. How much easier would Harry be to manipulate like this. They could make him a puppet on a string almost without an imperio. No, I agree that it sounds like the only option, but it will have to be a well-guarded secret. There are even several order members, whom I can think of, who would not even blink an eye at killing a baby if they thought it was possible to kill Voldemort."

"Sadly, I fear you're correct. Very well, how long will it take to brew the potion, Severus. Six hours?" At the potion master's nod, he sighed and continued.

"To whom should they go? Perhaps to the Weasleys?"

"No," Poppy Pomfrey interrupted. "The Weasleys would be ideal parents for Harry, certainly, but even without his scar," she paused gesturing to the teen's rapidly healing forehead, "the timing would be too obvious for everyone not to realize who he is. Aside from that, I am not entirely certain that they would ever be able to accept Tom as an innocent child. Not after everything that their family has been through."

"Then, perhaps, you have another suggestion?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." Poppy snapped decisively, "Albus, effectively immediately, I am tendering my resignation. My daughter and her husband, recently passed, as you know. Due to the war, and my affiliations, they've lived private lives in an unplottable location – especially over the past year, when they went into deep hiding with their two infant sons, so that they couldn't be captured and used to blackmail me into hurting you or Harry. No one will be the wiser, if claim my grandchildren and raise them. They'll have a new start and a mediwitch's constant supervision, in case the de-aging or this accident has unexpected effects.'

'Severus, if you would be willing to stay with us for a few weeks, just to see us through the deaging and adoption rituals, I can offer a quiet summer vacation spot with easy local access to several impressive botanical gardens..."

"Poppy!" Albus Dumbledore interrupted frantically, "have you considered the ramifications of your decision? Who you would be agreeing to raise?"

"Albus, I think that I see the ramifications more clearly than you may. I will not be raising a dark lord and a boy-who-lived, but two, orphaned three-month old boys, who have unexpectedly been given a second lease on life. Harry's destiny has been met, Albus, Lord Voldemort no longer exists. They are just two boys – two boys who need someone who can look at them as see them as they truly are: innocent children." Poppy chastised softly.

Under her insistent gaze, the headmaster finally nodded, and Poppy turned away to prepare for her trip to their future home.

  


> ...And so begins the fascinating forward of Poppy Pomfrey's best selling novelizaion, **_Poppy's Boys_**.
> 
>  
> 
> Superficially, seeming little more than the mundane memoirs of the former Hogwart's mediwitch, _Poppy's Boys_ is, in truth, the riveting tale of the mysterious disappearance and rebirth of three of the most controversial figures in the last war: Severus Snape, the war's most successful spy for the light; Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord Voldemort; and Harry Potter, the boy who lived.
> 
> Although some salacious gossips at the Daily Prophet, a once respected paper that has become little more than a skin-rag under Rita Skeeter's mismanagement, have attributed darker motivations to Professor Snape's decision to stay at Pomfrey's Estate, Havenhome - Madam Pomfrey's memoirs have completely debunked the assertion through a poignant tale of a tormented hero finally finding peace and redemption in his role as Elba Prince, potion master, mentor, and father figure to Evan and Gant Pomfrey, retrospectively, Harry and Tom – renamed in versions of their mother's maiden names.
> 
> It should be little wonder with Professor Snape as their mentor and surrogate father and Madam Pomfrey as their surrogate mother, that Evan and Gant grew up to become the youngest Healing Masters and Potion Masters in history – not only matching but beating their mentor's record not by age, but by the possession of dual masteries in contrast to his single mastery in the art of potions.At the time of their deaths, the brothers' achievements included the eradication of lycanthropy with not only a cure but a vaccine, the cure for cruciatis core burn, and the cure for the dark mark syndrome.
> 
> Sadly, their cure did not come in time to save their cherished adoptive father from the wasting disease that had– in Voldemort's absence- stricken everyone marked with the dark mark, but did come in time to save among others, his godson, Draco Malfoy, who had been abused and forcibly marked by his Death Eater father, the notorious Lucius Malfoy, in a last ditch attempt to rally the remaining Death Eaters after their leader's disappearance. According to Madam Pomfrey, who was laid to rest this morning in a private ceremony, the trials that their bodies had suffered in their previous life could not completely be erased from their de-aged forms and ultimately took their toll on both young men at 12:01 am on the night of July 31, one year ago today. They were laid to rest in a private ceremony, two day's later, in an unplottable location shared only with friends and family placed under a fidelus charm- to prevent the vandalism of their final resting place.
> 
> Anyone wishing to send their condolences to Madam Pomfrey's friends and remaining family may do so care of  Draco Malfoy's offices in London or Albus Dumbledore's offices at Hogwart's Academy of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
> 
> And so ends the heartwarming account of Poppy's Boy's; if you have not had the opportunity to pick up your own copy, stop by **Flourish and Blotts** or the **Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes** , where the books will be offered at half price in commemoration of the incredible family.

  


"It would have been much easier without this to draw attention to us." Evan huffed quietly as he finished reading Luna Lovegood's article to his brother and reshrunk the self-updating parchment to return it to his pocket.

"Perhaps," Gant agreed, pausing to cough weakly into the handkerchief Evan that quickly pressed to his lips. After a nod, his twin brother lowered the handkerchief so he could continue, "but, they deserved to be seen as the heros they were - to be the legends instead of us. The deserved to have the world know remember who they were."

"I know." Evan agreed watching his brother worriedly. "Would you like another dose?"

They were using a tincture of almost pure phoenix tears, and it was barely masking the pain.

"No," Gant refused with a flick of his fingers, "I'm good for now." ... and he was, for the moment.

Studying his brother's tired gaze, he knew that asking his brother to rest would be useless, but he opened his mouth to ask anyway only to snap it shut when Evan jerked his head with a sharp negative burst before the words could slip out. He really wasn't surprised, Evan had always taken care of him, even when they were barely-mobile babes sharing a crib (because they would cry almost incessantly if separated).

After they had discovered the truth of their identities, their father had once suggested that using Evan's blood in the adoption ritual to normalize Gant's appearance – when they learned that neither his nor their mother's were compatible enough for the ritual to stick - had transferred a small measure of the parental responsibility imposed by a full adoption ritual to Evan, even though he had not drunk the reciprocal potion. It would have been problematic to give the Evan so many doses of the reciprocal potions, which by the nature of the adoption was a stronger potion to increase the parent's feelings of bonding, especially as they had to repeat the adoption potion a full seven times before Gant finally had fully human features by visible inspection and by medical scan; nevertheless, by the time they finished the regimen of adoption potions, Gant was Evan's identical twin, and Evan was an inseparable companion and tireless defender.

Unlike most children, Gant never took his brother's caring and attention for granted. Though he never understood, until their secrets were divulged, that Evan's love and care for him had filled the void within him, which had tortured him in his former life and finally turned him dark. Despite their mother and father's concerns that discovering how heartless he had been formerly would deeply wound both of the brothers, it had never been a worry in this life because he knew that Evan would never let him turn dark - again. Evan kept him on the straight and narrow, or perhaps more precisely, he stayed on the straight and narrow because he knew that it would hurt Evan to do otherwise, and though he sometimes bristled at his brother's over-mothering, he would never consider hurting his twin.

Evan was too inherently good, too kind to bear something like that from a brother he had devoted most of his life to watching out for. That was perhaps the only thing that hurt more than the Dark Mark syndrome – the syndrome that had actually started in him months before it began to affect their father: the fact that as soon as they found and destroyed the last two horcruxes – he was going to hurt his brother again.

There was no doubt in his mind, though, that he had any alternative, with each horcrux they destroyed, the ravages of the syndrome affected his tortured and exhausted body more and more deeply. His body already begged for the peace that the foolish pursuit for immortality in his former life had denied him. Yet, as the time came nearer and nearer and his body grew increasingly weak and his magic became non-existent, he knew he was going to have to ask his brother to cast the spell for him. To give him peace. Even if he had the strength, he wasn't certain that he could have done it himself – the thought of going into the unknown – completely and entirely alone – terrified him.

"Silly Gant," Evan whispered in parsletongue, as an attendant walked by their cabin, "We've been tied together longer than we can remember, and inseparable throughout the thirty years that we can."

In his fingers, Evan was swinging the end of the long leather necklace that he had been wearing for months. Feeling a longing for even the simplest magic as he felt his brother drop the notice me not spell from the necklace, Gant was embarrased to find himself suddenly staring at its charm – agape. Instead of the chimera tooth that he had assumed it to be, Evan was wearing a young basilisk's fang.

"Do you really think I'd let you get the jump on the next great adventure without me?'


End file.
